Fed4FIRE+ Umbrella Terms and Conditions

Fed4FIRE+ Umbrella Terms and Conditions

Purpose of this document

These Terms and Conditions are provided to inform the user (hereinafter ‘You’) about what constitutes acceptable and permitted use of testbed resources and tools (hereinafter ‘the Platform’) in the Fed4FIRE+ federation (hereinafter ‘Fed4FIRE+’).

The regulations are not intended to constrain You unnecessarily, but to make You aware and protect You, along with all the participating institutions, from the consequences of any misuse or illegal activity as far as is reasonable.

It is important to understand that when You use the Platform You are bound by these global Fed4FIRE+ terms and conditions (as provided online at https://www.fed4fire.eu/terms), and also by the ICT regulations of Your own institution and the Acceptable Use Policy of the network providers connecting You to the testbed and interconnecting the resources You use. Thus You must have read and understood these before using Platform resources.

This policy may be updated as necessary. The current version in force will be available at https://www.fed4fire.eu/terms.

Context

Fed4FIRE+ provides an experimental platform for testing new ideas and technologies in the area of computer networking (https://www.fed4fire.eu). The federated facility consists of individual testbeds and tools, with different owners. The Fed4FIRE+ consortium is coordinated by imec.

Fed4FIRE+ provides You with basic access (through a single account, common tools, support and documentation) to the Platform, while each individual testbed provider determines the specifics of this access in terms of available resources, access policies, etc.

Scope

These Terms and Conditions apply to every user of the Platform.

The Terms and Conditions apply to the use of all equipment connected to the Platform. This includes servers, network(s), and Your workstations (whether owned by You, a company or an institution) and any other equipment or facilities connected to the Platform.

These Terms and Conditions apply to all use of the Platform.

These Terms and Conditions apply to third parties using the Platform through services You have made available through the Platform as part of an experiment. You will have to inform these third parties of the Terms and Conditions.

Limitation of Liability

No liability is assumed by service providers involved on the Platform or any member of the Fed4FIRE+ consortium in regards to interruption, corruption, loss or disclosure of the services, tools, processes and data hosted, unless it is explicitly mentioned otherwise.

Service Provision

You are granted Resources within the Fed4FIRE+ testbed so that You can use the Platform for the purposes described in the experiment projects You are taking part in. These resources can not be used for any other purposes.

Platform resource providers aim to provide a stable, high-quality service. If there is evidence that the actions of users are adversely impacting this, resource providers are empowered to take reasonable measures to terminate or reprioritise usage in order to protect the overall operation of their services. Implicated users will be contacted by testbed providers as early as is reasonable.

Acceptable Usage Policy

You are granted an account solely for Your own and personal use. You should take appropriate measure to protect Your credentials and prevent their use by third parties. The information You provide when requesting an account should be correct to the best of Your knowledge. You shall be responsible for all loss or damages to any part of the Platform as a result of any use of Your credentials to access the Platform, whether they are authorised or unauthorised by You.

You shall be liable for actions performed on the Platform, by You, at your request or at the request of any other user invited or permitted by You to use services running on Fed4FIRE+. In case of any loss or damage to the Platform originating from Your account, You are responsible for repairing or compensating for all damages to the Platform. In addition, You must respect the regulations of the various testbed resources You use in Your work, as described at https://www.fed4fire.eu/terms. Your need to do this arises from co-operative agreements that have been made between all the organisations participating in the Platform.

You may not interfere with others’ work or attempt to invade their privacy.

You may not attempt to disrupt the working of the Platform.

You must respect all Copyright for any software and data used on the Platform.

The terms of software and data licences must be respected.

You are not entitled to move proprietary data to, from, or via Platform systems without the prior agreement of its owner.

Once You have registered to use the Platform, it is Your responsibility to remain aware of these regulations and of any changes made to them, and your continued use of the Platform means that you shall abide by the latest version of these terms and conditions.

In order to keep the Platform operating correctly in both the technical and legal senses, it may become necessary to investigate network traffic (including, for example, e-mails) as well as examine information held on systems that are, or have been, connected to the Platform. You are deemed to have agreed to this.

You must ensure that all known or obvious threats and vulnerabilities of the systems You run are adequately addressed.

Should Your usage imply giving access to the Platform to third parties, You understand You will need to gather explicit consent from the operators of the individual testbed providers You will use, and You agree to enforce any restrictions imposed by an individual testbed provider and accept to fulfil Your legal obligations regarding data protection and retention laws.

The following are explicitly forbidden on the Platform:

• Any military usage, including the development and production of weapons of mass destruction.
• Any activity resulting in compromising the security or integrity of any sites or networks connected to the Fed4FIRE+ facility
• Distribution of documents or materials containing insults or defamation, racial hatred or revisionism, terrorism, advertising, or distribution of material in a way that infringes the copyright of another person.
• Any illegal activity.

You must comply to any additional national regulations from the government of the operators of the local testbeds.

Enforcement

Whenever You use the Platform, You are bound by all the regulations in the current form of these terms and conditions and the legislation in force at the time.

The regulations and legislation which applies to You will be enforced by imec, as leader of the Fed4FIRE+ consortium, or/and by the affected testbed providers, even if a breach of either has been evidenced from elsewhere.

Note that for breaches of some legislation, the law enforcement can be involved.

Ignorance of regulations or legislation is not a defence.

Penalties, as defined in the individual testbed regulations at https://www.fed4fire.eu/terms, will be levied for confirmed breaches of regulations.

Disciplinary and investigative processes may also involve any Fed4FIRE+ partners, users and testbed providers involved in or affected by Your actions.

Note that all testbed providers have agreed to co-operate in investigating disciplinary cases.

You agree that the testbed and network providers in Fed4FIRE+ may monitor the systems and traffic for vulnerabilities and conformance to the acceptable uses, and You will collaborate with Fed4FIRE+ and any third party involved should any violations or breaches be noticed. The testbed providers involved may suspend or stop systems or suspend network connectivity without notice if such violations are found or suspected. To fulfil legal and contractual requirements, they may communicate to authorized third parties the owner and user of any resource provisioned and connected to the internet.

Non-research use of Platform resources

The Fed4FIRE+ federation Platform has been constructed for experiment-driven research activities, where experiment-driven research is defined as any activity that furthers the user’s knowledge and/or understanding of algorithms, complex data structures or user behaviour.

If You wish to use the Platform for any other purpose this must be authorized in advance by the Fed4FIRE+ testbed providers You will use. You will be expected to provide detailed information in support of Your request.

Experiments must obtain prior agreement from the providers of all resources (e.g. computers, software, data, networks, and any other facilities) before these are used for any purposes other than experiment-driven research activities.

The use of Fed4FIRE+ to host commercial services is explicitly disallowed.